a day in the life
by Red Thread Studios
Summary: Life goes on, even if you wish it wouldn't. "She can feel blood soaking through the palm of her left glove. ::ANBU & all it implies, Sakura, some thoughts of self-harm::  Written for RTS, by misssilivren .


**a day in the life**

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><p><em>misssilivren,<em>

_for RTS  
><em>

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><p><em>about a lucky man who made the grave.<em>

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><p>Sakura doesn't allow herself to feel regret anymore.<p>

She doesn't think about what brought her here _(and where is _here_ anyways? here alive when everyone she cared about - not true, don't be so dramatic Sakura, histrionics have no more place in your world - is dead? here in Konoha? here in ANBU? here in hell?)_ because thinking _(her only saving grace in her team, the ability to think, which they had so painfully and utterly lacked)_ isn't her job. Her job is killing people - protecting the village to put a child-appropriate spin on it, honouring her Hokage, doing her duty to the village - and that, at least, hasn't changed. If you think about it, nothing really has. She's still a medic. Still a kunoichi, still alive, _(still alone)_, still doing her duty. It's just that - the sensation of blood dripping down her neck over the sides of her mask is unpleasant and she reaches up a hand to wipe it away - it's just that she doesn't understand _(something new, there)_ how killing a seven year old child is doing a service to anyone. But still. Not her place to think, she reminds herself, and runs faster. She wants to get home _(she wants to get _away from here_)_ so that she can take a shower.

She can feel blood soaking through the palm of her left glove.

She checks in at the ANBU headquarters, and tells the jounin working the desk that she'll be turning in her report on Monday morning. The woman nods, glancing over her critically, then dismissing her as relatively unharmed. Sakura leaves bloody handprints from where she had touched the desk, and the jounin clucks in irritation and grabs an antiseptic wipe to scrub it off. Sakura apologizes and tries not to leave too many bloody footprints on the woman's nice clean floor.

She goes to the apartment she's currently living in. There are two messages from Ino, checking up on her, telling her that she'd bought fresh milk and did she know that there was something alive in the fridge? seriously, she's getting worried. she'll check up later, okay? call her when she gets back. She deletes the messages, and thinks, _'Silly Ino-pig_,_'_ with a vague kind of affection. Then she peels her clothes off her body - they smell like sweat and iron and the sharp scent of chakra; _'Ew_,' she thinks, when she sees the blood crusted stiffly on the shirt. '_That was my favorite. Crap.'_ She leaves another blood trail she'll have to clean up in the bathroom. The hot water is a long time coming, and she stands underneath it's furious, scalding blast until her shoulders feel adequately lobster-like and she feels less like peeling off her own skin to find out what kind of monster hid underneath. (_no one would be surprised, really; the suicide rate in ANBU is just a bit lower than the mission-related deaths. she has scalpels and saws and kunai and she could _dismember_ herself and dull her nerves with chakra and not feel a _goddamn thing_ and - )_ She turns the water off and steps out after washing dirt and yet _more_ blood out of her hair. _'Ridiculous stuff gets everywhere.'_

There is ramen in the kitchen cabinet. She doesn't feel like cooking, but she doesn't want to eat the ramen, either. Finally she tells herself firmly to stop being an idiot _(oh god you idiot why did you leave why he wasn't worth it you weren't worth it just come back both of you i hate you)_ and forces herself to boil the water, rip open the package, dump the noodles in and separate them with a fork. She opens the small silver package containing the spices and flavouring, and stares hard at the paint flaking on the walls in an effort to stop thinking about what the smell reminds her of.

The bowl she pulls out is orange. She hurls it against a wall without thinking and it shatters into so many bright plastic pieces on the linoleum floor. She looks at the mess helplessly for a second before turning away. She'll clean it in the morning. The second bowl is dark blue. That only narrowly escapes it's predecessor's fate; she holds it so tight in one hand that she nearly breaks it anyways. Damn Ino for picking these bowls; if it had been up to Sakura, she would have eaten out of whatever pots or pans she'd cooked out of and consumed it with the cooking spoon or her single pair of chopsticks. She pours the ramen in tightly and defiantly grabs a fork out of the drawer, bypassing the chopsticks. When she eats the ramen, it's delicately, winding each noodle around her fork and lifting it up to her mouth carefully. _(the whole ramen thing had been pointless in any case; she'll wake up in the middle of the night to puke it up anyways). _She leaves the last dregs of the broth lying in the bowl and stares at the TV. It's been on and muted the whole time she'd been away on the mission.

Sakura stands up and leaves her bowl in the sink, lying quietly down on her futon. It's not cold, but she draws the covers up over her anyways. She goes to sleep, and when she wakes up the next morning she pretends she did not dream.

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><p><em>AN:_ Okay.

Wow. I really didn't mean for that to come out as strange and slightly disturbing as it did.

Um.

So! Basically my self-prompt was "ANBU Sakura, trying not to be cynical but failing, in a world where Naruto and Sasuke died fighting each other, Kakashi was hokage for a while then killed himself and god knows who's Hokage now, probably Konohamaru or something, but anyways, a day in her twisted sad gloomy depressing life where Ino is basically the only person who cares about her anymore."

I feel like I succeeded. ^_^ And as usual, I have the annoying italicized parenthesis everywhere to provide more mind-screwy-ness. Please, please leave a review to tell me what you think. It honestly doesn't take very long, and I don't have enough of an overall review count to not be greedy and hoard them like the jewels that they are.

...Even if your review is just a rant about how irritating my run-on sentences are. :D

Oh! And the song from which I got the title and quote at the beginning is "A Day in the Life" by the Beatles.

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><p><strong><em>PSA:<em>** This fic was written for Red Thread Studios, a pretty new community developed on FF by myself and my friend, Yukihana Hisako. Red Thread Studios is a group which was created to gather authors and stories interested in writing about Team 7, make it easier to beta fics and form collabs, and have like-minded people for authors to interact with. If you're interested, please check out the rules on our page (just click the author link) or PM me if you have any questions. :D


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